


Halo: Section Zero

by Legume_Shadow



Series: Halo: Section Zero Archives [2]
Category: Halo
Genre: Alternate Universe, Author Likes to Write Weird Stuff, Gen, Short Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-20
Updated: 2010-02-20
Packaged: 2017-12-28 06:09:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/988633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Legume_Shadow/pseuds/Legume_Shadow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence is known for their secrets kept such as the ORION Project and secrets exposed, such as the SPARTAN-II Project.  Journey into one of those secrets kept classified under the radar and learn about a group of people who serve the UNSC in the war against the overwhelming Covenant forces.  Welcome to ONI Section Zero.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Era: Halo Trilogy, Halo ODST, Halo: Fall of Reach (first edition), Halo: First Strike, Halo: Ghosts of Onyx universe. Does not incorporate most of Halo: Reach (except for tech) or anything in the Halo 4 and Forerunner expansion mythos.
> 
> First Publishing: February 2010. All copyrights apply to the appropriate parties and no profit is being made from this fanwork.

**Chapter 1.0: É Tu, Bruté?**

 

_What is this, the third time already in less than a year?!_

Not that she had any disrespect towards the hulking figures that were eerily and silently flanking her six, but she sometimes had to wonder what Section Zero was thinking in lumping her and the other two of her strike team with the SPARTAN-II’s of Section Three. This was already the third mission she had been attached to with the SPARTAN-II’s and though the first two were under Section Three’s command, this one was strictly under Section Zero’s command. That made her feel just a tad better to be out from Section Three’s control, but still…

 _To hell with it, the Covenant doesn’t give a shit_ …

They never did, and neither did anyone else for the matter. It didn’t matter what branch of the armed forces you were from, the Covenant just shot anyone that looked remotely human. Of course, that didn’t mean that with the hulking shadows flanking them, they were invincible…no she and her strike team _knew_ who they were…the two-point-zeros. Section Zero knew who they were, yet they still kept everything from the other Sections and she preferred it that way. Let the public love the two-point-zeroes while they and Section Zero worked in the background, content with the lack of glory. Such was the way of ONI and such was the way that all the other Sections should have behaved.

Pulling out of her thoughts, she took one last look down her sniper rifle’s scope and with a wave of her hand, she heard the booted feet of the other two in her team fan out, followed by the near-silent steps of the SPARTAN’s in their MJOLNIR armor. She was the last to fall out, hefting her sniper rifle and kept a good pace with the SPARTAN’s before she put on a burst of speed and passed the green-giants to catch up with her team.

As soon as she saw her teammate, Jake, hold up a fist for them to stop, she skidded to a halt and quickly ducked behind a fallen branch in the colorful jungle. The sky above was grey, but the humidity was overwhelming, taxing the internal cooling systems that she and her team had on, to its limit and still it was a sauna inside her suit. But she kept her helmet on and stuck it out, feeling sweat slid its way down her face, soaking into the minimal padding and sitting on the interior of the helmet. There were far worse places, she knew, that they could have been inserted into, and this was nothing compared to the last mission she and her strike team had been sent on. During the humid nights in which they had stopped for a couple of hours of rest before moving on, she did briefly wonder how the SPARTAN-II’s were coping with their armor. She had a basic knowledge of what the MJOLNIR armor was, but still…if her own set of upgraded high-powered armor, tweaked by Section Zero of course, was at its limit, then how were the MJOLNIR armors performing?

A light on the upper right corner of her HUD suddenly blinked green and she immediately rolled out from her cover and darted towards the line of trees that were growing out of a rocky hill. The barely audible sound of one of the SPARTAN’s following her was heard as she quickly scrambled up the hill and threw herself flat on the sloping ground just beyond the ridge. Next to her, the SPARTAN that had followed also dropped to the ground and a slight turn of her head and she saw the numerical designation etched onto the green breast-plate of the SPARTAN: zero-five-eight, Linda.

She’d never called the SPARTANs by their given names, preferring to refer to them by their numerical designations, but she and her team, along with certain personnel within Section Zero knew all the names of those recruited into Doctor Halsey’s project. Of course, it wouldn’t be fair for Section Three to find out what they knew, so they kept it under wraps. But for this mission, she knew all the SPARTANs’ abilities, for this was the third time her team and the designated SPARTAN-II Blue Team had worked together. In the pre-brief, she had specifically requested SPARTAN-058 to be her support because of her exceptional sniping skills, and it was now that she would leave her on this hill while the rest of the team made their way and engaged the Covenant on their supposedly hidden base.

It was an unusual mission to say the least, but highly dangerous, with only less than a five percent chance of making it out alive. Recon reports from the probes sent out at the beginning of the war had spotted this enclave near the system where Harvest had been hit. The UNSC had decided that the mission was go for the assassination of a Prophet, and her and her team had been called in for the strike…along with SPARTAN Blue Team. However, this was not going to be a simple point-and-shoot assassination with a sniper rifle…this was to try to cause an internal civil war within the Covenant. Intel had gone through translations of the Covenant hierarchy, enough so that they had deciphered that the best way to pull this op was to make it look like one of their Elites had killed their Prophet.

A small light clicked amber on the top corner of her HUD, indicating that SPARTAN-058 was getting settled and ready. Leaving her own sniper rifle at the top of the hill along with the three packs of ammo she carried for it, she made sure her pistol was secured to its holster and slid down the rocky hill. Jagged rocks scraped and pelted her on the way down, but she ignored it and as soon as she hit the bottom, she crouched and rolled forward, while bringing her pistol out of its holster, sighting down to make sure that if anyone heard the semi-quiet descent, they were only friendlies.

The tricky part of the mission was going to be on both her and SPARTAN-058’s backs and it would require accurate timing with the other SPARTANs and the other two of her team. Jake, Eryn and the rest of the SPARTANs were going to be the distraction to draw most of the Covenant in the enclave towards them, giving her some time to hunt down the Prophet and an Elite that was hopefully near the Prophet. Instead of the usual ammunition rounds that were going to be in the sniper rifle that SPARTAN-058 carried, there were specialized tranquilizer rounds that UNSC R&D had developed. She hoped that the R&D guys got the formula correct to tranquilize the Elite but no matter. Even if the tranquilizer did not completely take hold or poisoned the Elite, the end result would still be the same.

Keep her gun down a bit as she darted as fast as she could through the thick brambles of the unusually color of trees in the forest and squishy underfoot of the jungle. She kept her ears open and though her tracker showed negative signs of enemy contact, she didn’t rely on the tracker, especially when it could not pick up cloaked Elites.

Minutes later, the forest abruptly ended, and strange-looking structures half-buried in mounds of dirt, moss, and vines filled her view. Her pistol was up again, but there was no one in sight, not even on her tracker. Darting from shadow to shadow, she glanced in and out of the outer rooms of the small structures, careful to not disturb any of the loosened rocks or moss that seemed to be hanging by a thread to their roots.

Another few minutes of fruitless searches and she suddenly heard the muffled explosion that was amplified by the ground beneath her as it started shaking and knew that the rest of the team had started to set things in motion. Their part of the op was to make it look like they were there only to take out what looked like a small munitions factory that the enclave produced, which would be a bonus to the mission, and she knew that they intended to actually take out the munitions factory.

Ducking into a small cavern of fallen rocks, dust and earth rained down on her as another muffled explosion tore through the place and she sincerely hoped that this precarious cavern did not collapse on her. The squawks and the grunted yowls of the Covenant forces blasted past her, the waves of Grunts, Elites, and Jackals pouring out from the inside of the structures, running towards where the explosions took place. She could hear the whining scream of Banshees start to fill the air, along with the sound of super heated lasers and plasmas. The sounds of gunfire filled the air, but as soon as the dust cleared, she scrambled out of her hiding place and ducked into the nearest structure.

She quickly, but cautiously wove her way around the ancient building, encountering no one, until she stepped out from behind a cool stone wall and found herself face-to-face with a large anteroom. Luck was definitely with her, for she didn’t expect to find the Prophet in the first building she slipped into, but it was also definitely not with her, for there were _two_ Elites guarding the Prophet.

 _Shit_!

She ran, and behind her, she heard the slightly guttural cries of the Elites as they chased her. Darting her way through the place, she slipped as she ran on the damp moss that covered the ground, and when she finally saw the open daylight spill out from one of the many halls that surrounded this infernal labyrinth, she took it and ran straight out into the open. The Elites were hot on her heels, but suddenly, they yowled and she heard them collapse onto the ground in a heap. Turning, she was faintly alarmed to hear something so ragged through her helmet and realized that it was only her gasping for breath. Never had she ran so fast in her life, and she had to give kudos to Section Zero for that, even if it did come with a couple of side effects she was not very fond of.

Turning around, she nodded with satisfaction that the two Elites had been tranquilized by SPARTAN-058 and quickly set to work by dragging the Elites as fast as she could to the interior of the structure. As soon as she was sure that they would not be spotted by passing troops on their way to the main battle, she disarmed the plasma rifles from the elites and made sure that their energy swords were not on them should they shake off the tranquilizer. Smashing both rifles with the heel of her boot and scattering the remains into the outside, she pocketed the strange handle of the energy swords – she would need them in a moment. As she searched around one of the Elites, hoping to find a cloaking mechanism, there was none to be found. Slightly disappointed, she quickly made her way to the heart of the structure. There had been no other way into the anteroom, so she was going to have to do this fast and quick.

Drawing her combat knife from its sheath in her boot, she silently charged into the room and before the Prophet could even squeak, she plunged the blade deep into the center of its body. Its weak hands flailed about, ineffectively striking her as she continued to hold the blade against the putrid, brown-grey flesh that was covered in rich colors. “Die, you fucking piece of shit,” she hissed as she watched the life slowly ebb out of the Prophet. When the Prophet finally fell still, she jumped off its hovering chair and sheathed the blade back into her boot.

She ran towards the outer areas of the structure and with a slightly bit of difficulty, she dragged the two Elites towards the anteroom. However, it was more difficult to stand the Elites up the way ONI wanted it, but she managed it. Taking the two energy swords out, she wrapped their claws around the swords and as soon as she squeezed each claw to make sure that the grip was solid, the swords sprung out, nearly slicing her hands and arms off. With careful manipulation, she eased the first Elite who was standing in front of the dead Prophet into a stance that had the Elite stabbing the energy sword right where she had stabbed the alien. The second was standing behind the Prophet, and she had that Elite plunge its sword into the back of the Prophet as his head lolled forward. For good measure, she viciously stabbed the first Elite with her combat knife through the part where its armor did not cover part of its torso and carved out a large enough hole through the Elite. She saw the Elite visibly shudder a bit; fighting through the tranquilizer, but no matter, the R&D folks had done their job well. She then took the dead hand of the Prophet and squelched it through the hole.

 _É tu, Bruté_?

With those thoughts lingering in her mind and her job complete, she stepped back a bit and admired her work. Of course, none of this would be recorded for that was the way of Section Zero, but there was no sense in not admiring an objective completed. Now the only other thing was to get back out to the battlefield and help her fellow soldiers bring down the rest of the Covenant in the enclave and get to the pickup point before reinforcements arrived.

Tapping her helmet to send the objective complete signal, she sprinted out of the anteroom and through the structure; she pulled her pistol out of its holster, though she regretted not having any other weapon beside her pistol and combat knife. Still, as she burst out of the structure and quickly made her way around the buildings towards where she could hear the firefight, she knew that at least the sniper rifle would be put to good use with SPARTAN-058.

There were a few plasma grenades lying about and she picked up a few of those and as she approached the battlefield. Ducking behind a mossy, vine-covered structure, she glanced out and saw that a few Grunts were manning at least two Shades and were pinning down the rest of the teams. Priming two of the plasma grenades she lobbed it and saw them stick to the Shades. As the explosions tore through the weaponry and the Grunts, there was only a brief moment of silence before the angry buzz of more Shades started back up, along with the gunfire. Shrapnel and dirt pelted her as she ducked from the incoming barrage, but they were suddenly diverted towards the sound of gunfire in the opposite direction.

She took the opportunity in the reprieve and charged through the overhang of an ancient structure running perpendicular to the line of Shades. Columns and dirt exploded all around her, slicing into the areas where her armor did not completely cover her, and in retaliation, she lobbed another plasma grenade in their direction while emptying her pistol towards the hazes of the Covenant she could make out of the dust and dirt that had been kicked up. There was a brief moment of silence and she dimly heard the rapid squeaks of the Grunts scrambling away before another Shade blew up.

Sprinting the rest of the way across the battlefield, she swung herself over a large piece of fallen debris that was being used as a barrier by the teams, and landed hard on her side, driving a few shards further into her already-pain-wracked body. The three SPARTANs with her team were still laying down a good amount of cover fire, but now that she was on the other side of the field, the three Shades that she took out paled in comparison to what was before all of them.

“Jake! Status!” she yelled as she picked up one of the extra assault rifles and crawled over to where her teammate was, shooting off the flanking Covenant, leaving their way out open.

“Chain is set, ready to blow the place to hell, Leigh!”

“Then lets get this shindig over with!” she shouted, popping up from under the pock-marked stone and picked off a couple of Jackals.

Just as one of the SPARTANs, she noted that it was SPARTAN-117, John, pushed the small trigger that was squeezed between his hand and the rifle he was holding, she sent out the fall-back signal through their linked HUDs. Not far from where the six of them were holed up, the resulting chained explosion tore through a structure, sending her and her team flat to the ground while the SPARTANs merely crouched. Dust, dirt, and lots of muck rained down on top of them, but she and her team recovered quickly.

Wasting no time, they turned and sprinted out of the battlefield, occasionally turning back to fire off a few rounds, making sure that the Covenant were not going to pursue them. They tried to keep pace with the SPARTANs, but their counterparts were surging ahead though once in a while, one would stop, turn and cover their retreat before joining them again.

She dimly heard Jake break radio silence and call for evac as they tore through the jungle, startling the various exotic birds and creatures that had been nestled in the area. She could still hear the enraged howls of the Covenant, but as they continued to pound through towards the pick-up point, the cries were getting fainter and fainter. Suddenly, one of the SPARTANs held up a fist and everyone grinded to a halt. Three flashes of red appeared the upper corner of her HUD and she warily looked around. There was nothing she could hear except for the faint echoes of the Covenant forces and the cries of the birds disturbed from their nests. But then, out of the corner of her eyes, she thought she saw something move, but by the time she turned, it was too late, the Elites struck.

But it was not with the plasma rifles that still hung on their armor that this group of Elites, bearing the same armor designs as the two she had seen guarding the Prophet. They struck with their energy swords, raised high as they dissolved their cloaks and charged, screaming at the top of their lungs.

Bullets and the sound of gunfire filled the air once again as she and the rest of the teams riddled the Elites with metal, but it wasn’t slowing them down. She mentally swore as the counter on her rifle clicked to zero and the black-and-silver-armored Elite that charged her bore down on her. “Fuck,” she muttered, and with a resigned-but-steely resolution, she threw her empty rifle at the Elite and charged, drawing her combat knife from her boot while priming her last plasma grenade. If these Elites were of the same guard unit as the two she had encountered back in the anteroom, then they could not be left alive for the mission to have a possibility of succeeding.

The Elite easily dodged the incoming rifle, but it was also quite slowed for there was about a clip-and-a-half worth of bullets riddled through its body. She put on a burst of speed and as soon as she was in range, she crouched, and with all her weight behind the force, slashed up, feeling the blade slice straight through the armor of the Elite, through a mandible, and across the raised arm that was holding the energy sword, breaking off and lodging part of the blade in the arm. Twisting, she smashed the primed plasma grenade into what was left of the chest of the Elite and leapt back. She crashed into the ground with a painful crunch and rolled, stopping only when she saw the outline of the energy sword that had fallen from the sliced hand on the ground next to her.

Blindingly white-hot pain seared across one of her legs as she screamed and turned to see that one of the Elites had unsteadily shot her with its plasma rifle. The Elite was just about to unload the rest of the rifle into her when the Elite she had stuck exploded, sending a shower of purplish-blue blood everywhere and taking the Elite with the plasma rifle out too.

Fighting the pain that threatened to send her to oblivion, she unsteadily got to her feet and picked up the plasma rifle, but just as she was about to pour the rifle into several Elites clustered around her team mates, the rapid cracks of a sniper rifle rang through the air, and three Elites were down. SPARTAN-058 had taken three Elites down faster than she could blink and she didn’t know which one had been hit first. As more cracks from the sniper rifle rang out, the rest of the SPARTANs took the Elites down quickly. Less than a couple of minutes after the skirmish had started, it was over, but the howls of the angry Covenant forces had gotten a bit louder.

Like a cat slinking out of a tiny hole, SPARTAN-058 slid from the darkness of the jungle to join them. Eryn, the third and final member of the Section Zero strike team approached Leigh, and she saw her toss a small portable can of biofoam at her. The tip of the injection point was already a bit stained with blood and she looked over to see that though still a bit unsteady on his feet, Jake had a bit of biofoam erupting from his torso where a part of his armor used to be. Surprisingly, Eryn was the only one of her strike team to escape relatively unscathed.

She tapped a series of lights across her still somewhat function helmet and got winks of acknowledgement. They had to plasma grenade the place so that when the Covenant found this area, no evidence of their manipulations would be left and only the blame of the Elites would be there for them to have killed their Prophet. The only vocal transmission that this mission allowed was the call for evac – everything else was done by hand signals and lights.

As soon as the sensation of burning ants crawling around the gaping wound on her leg subsided enough, she tossed the biofoam can back to Eryn and picked up a plasma rifle and a few of the grenades. Soon they had the rest of the plasma grenades primed and ready, and with the crackle of an incoming transmission over their helmets, they continued to run. The resulting explosion from the force of multiple plasma grenades thundered behind them, but they continued on, sparing no glance back.

 _Only five klicks to go_ , she thought to herself as she glanced down at the spazzing tracker that fizzled and popped a bit through her helmet’s internal speaker. Though she could not see through the thick jungle, she could hear the distinct roar of a Pelican slamming its self through the atmosphere as it knocked off its speed in Mach like there was no tomorrow. Ignoring the pain lancing up and down her wounded leg, adrenaline coursed through her blood and she put on some speed.

Nothing but the squishy mud and the wild trees of the humid jungle stood in the way of the four SPARTAN-II’s and the three-person strike team as they covered the remainder of the distance between them and their ride to home and safety. Though the furious howls of the Covenant forces continued to bay at them as the clambered up into the waiting Pelican, they safely left the ground and took to the skies.

As soon as the Pelican and its cargo were well away from the ground, Leigh collapsed onto the bench and shed her helmet, tossing it to the floor like some discarded and highly disdained toy. The plasma rifle went with it too, sinking into the bowl of the helmet. Sweat dripped from her face, mingling with blood, and it stung, but she was too tired to care, for her throbbing leg wound was hurting more than a minor mix of saltwater and shallow cuts. Jake had also shed his helmet as he painfully sat across from her while Eryn took the small can of biofoam out again and applied it to his side. The SPARTANs had quietly arrayed themselves on the far end of the Pelican, two on each side of the bird’s belly, and she noted that they themselves had also not completely come away unscathed, though they looked far better than she or Jake did.

As the Pelican shuddered through its acceleration past Mach one and pressed to the higher numbers to get away from the gravity well of the planet, she bent down a bit to unsheathe her combat knife, only to remember that it had broke when she used it against the Elite.

“Huh,” she softly said, holding the broken blade up to the Pelican’s interior belly lights as the remnants of purplish-blue blood dripped to the floor. “The only casualty of this op is Vera…”

 

~*~*~*~


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 1.1: Section Zero**

 

Despite the amount of pain he felt as he felt his insides slosh a bit and then harden as more biofoam was injected into his wound, he grinned at his commander’s comment. But that grin was instantly wiped away as he saw her sway just a tiny bit before collapsing. However, before he or Eryn could move to catch her from slamming her head to the floor of the Pelican, one of the SPARTANs had taken two steps to close the distance and caught Leigh before she could crash into the hard floor. SPARTAN-087, Kelly, set her down onto the bench with unimaginable gentleness that he didn’t think possible in their MJOLNIR armor.

Eryn left his side and crouched before Leigh, examining the nasty-looking leg wound before shaking her head a bit and put more biofoam into the wound. “Not enough, and too close to the main deep vein.” She got up and took a seat next to their passed out commander, finally taking her helmet off as the Pelican shuddered again and the feeling of weightlessness settled in for a brief moment before the gravity compensators kicked in, bring them back to normal gravity.

“Well, I’ll hold on to Vera while the two of you get patched up,” Eryn said after a few moments of silence that was only punctured by SPARTAN-087 getting up from her crouch to sit on the Pelican’s long bench. She plucked the broken combat knife from Leigh’s hand and unstrapped the boot sheath before strapping it to her own boot and sheathed the blade.

He tried to grin, but it was just a bit too painful for him to completely move and so he settled with staring at the Pelican’s floor, though occasionally, he did glance down the belly to see the stoic, silent SPARTAN-II’s sitting still with their helmets still on. He had a hunch that they were communicating though their own internal comm network, but he didn’t care. The mission was done and the op was successful, and the only casualty was the combat knife that Leigh loved so dearly. Still, he couldn’t help but feel a bit sad that this was perhaps to be the last mission that the ONI Section Zero strike team was to go on with the SPARTAN-II Blue Team. They had worked quite well together in the three missions they had been lumped with. But like his commander, he didn’t think that Section Zero and Section Three should mix often, for there were plenty of secrets that Section Zero wanted to keep and the details of three of the strike team were one of them.

The rest of their journey back to safety and home was passed in silence and as soon the Pelican touched down and its maw opened, medical officers streamed in and he allowed himself to be taken over by them and wheeled away to the medical bay. As soon as the sterile scents of the blindingly white medical wing of the ship entered his nostril, he gagged a bit at the smell. He had never liked the smell and attributed it to his childhood where he only remembered vague shapes surrounding him along with that particular scent. He had been scared then, but now he knew better for it had been Section Zero who had injected him with all sorts of augmentations to make him the way he was, an enhanced soldier.

However, he was most definitely not as enhanced as the SPARTAN-II’s for he knew that they, the children of those who volunteered for ORION Project, were the ones that were experimented upon prior to the injection and augmentations of the SPARTAN-II’s. He wasn’t angry at Section Zero for using them like guinea pigs, but he did wish that they did do some more in depth research before they had injected the one-point-ones, the children of the one-point-zeroes, with whatever concoction they had cooked up. At least he didn’t come out with horrific side effects that a lot of the one-point-zeroes had ended up with, but the side effects he had, weren’t welcomed either.

As he lay awake on the operating table, half-watching the doctors and nurses work on his wound while injecting local anesthetic where need be, he glance over a bit to see another set of doctors and nurses furiously working on his commander. The steady beat of his own heart rate was like a drum compared to the erratic heartbeat of his commander and he felt a well of worry creep up on him. Her wounds hadn’t looked all that bad when she had leapt over the barrier, but then again, Eryn was not a qualified field medic and he could only rely on her assessment of wounds only superficially.

A sudden bout of sleepiness overtook him and he glanced back to see one of the nurses withdrawing a needle from the IV that had been stuck into his arm. He didn’t want to go to sleep, but the medication was kicking in and with only the mixed sounds of the machines pulsing out the heartbeats, he fell into dark oblivion.

 

When he next awoke, it was chilly and he realized that someone had stripped him of his armor and shucked him into a medical gown. Though there were sheets covering him, it was quite a paltry attempt to keep him warm, compared to the cool temperature in the medical wing where the recovery wards were. Across from where he was lying in his medical bed, was Leigh, and she had a steady heartbeat, though she was still asleep. He heard the soft murmurs of a muted and quite conversation and turned his head a bit to see that Eryn was surprisingly talking to SPARTAN-087, who had doffed her helmet.

Short, brown hair framed the SPARTAN’s face but there was a strange sense of a relaxed feeling that he got from the SPARTAN, which unnerved him for a bit, for even if he did respect the two-point-zeroes, they were still a bit imposing in their armor. Never had he read in the SPARTAN-IIs’ missions that they chatted with anyone outside their group except for perhaps, Doctor Halsey.

Doctor Halsey, now that was a name for which he could come up with both curses and blessings, for Section Zero were always quite vigilant in keeping their secrets as far away from her as possible. She had an uncanny knack to hack into informational servers that Section Zero strove to protect and it didn’t help that she oversaw the creation of of the third-gen smart AIs. Section Zero wanted to keep their list of one-point-zeros and one-point-ones away from her, and he agreed with them, for they did not need to be shoved into the public limelight such as the two-point-zeroes. He along with the rest of Section Zero was content to let Halsey shine as they worked in the background to further develop Halsey’s work.

That was also why Section Zero and Section Three did not quite get along as much as they should, for one held the belief of shadow strike operations, but the other flaunted the SPARTAN-II’s and caused Section Two to keep up with the mythos. It drove some of Section Two’s resources away to keep the mythos up, where he thought it could have been used towards listening posts…but no matter…what was done was done. They would work together as needed to defeat the Covenant.

“…so Jake kicks the shrubbery in frustration and in retaliation, the shrubbery decides to snake some of its vines out to grab him,” he heard Eryn say as he listened in. They were on the far side of the room in which a normal person would not have been able to make out the words, but with the augmentations running through him, he could easily hear them. He mentally sighed, Eryn was telling SPARTAN-087 that slightly embarrassing story of one of their non-classified missions in which he had been attacked by a shrub that had actually been an indigenous creature of the planet.

He sent a glare towards his fellow teammate and was just as lucky to catch her glancing at him with a slightly impish grin on her face. That grin became wider as she realized he was awake and she bounded over to him, acting completely like a six-year-old. Professionalism wasn’t one of the top things that stuck in Eryn’s mind, neither was decorum, for she chatted quite a bit with other personnel aboard whatever ship they had been assigned to. He speculated it was because of how Eryn grew up, which was the reason why she was quite buoyantly cheerful during downtime and a straight-up professional soldier during missions. The SPARTAN however, stayed near the entrance, though she did turn her taciturn gaze towards him and nod before glancing towards the still sleeping Leigh.

“Finally awake, eh?” Eryn said, giving him a friendly punch to the shoulder. “I told them about Vera…could tell that they were wondering why the hell we would list a combat knife as a casualty.”

“And?” he asked, waiting for the rest.

“And…I couldn’t tell if they found it amusing or not…but they did welcome us into their team, making us honorary members…I think they like working with us…and we proved our worth to them,” she continued.

“Just as long as es-zed is fine with it and it doesn’t complicate things with es-tee, then great,” he casually said, knowing that SPARTAN-087 would be able to hear every single word that they were saying. He figured he’d let them stew on his acronym for Section Zero and Section Three and continue to let them and the rest of the crew on this ship think that the three-man team that had gone on an operation with the SPARTAN-II’s were just ODSTs. “But you know how the SPARTANs are, Eryn…they come and go on ops…so we’ll never really be a part of their team.”

“Spoil sport,” she groused, leaning a bit back on the railing of the empty bed next to his.

He merely shrugged, glad that he could do so now with no pain or the sensation of his skin being ripped apart anymore. But just as he was about to continue to voice his opinion, the heavy footsteps of another SPARTAN entered the medical ward and both he and Eryn looked up to see SPARTAN-104, Frederic, brush past his fellow SPARTAN and stop before Leigh’s bed. Though the hulking figure of the green-armored SPARTAN, even without his helmet on, obscured his view, Jake heard the unmistakable sound of a _shtink_ as a combat knife was withdrawn from the shoulder housing of the SPARTAN’s armor and gently it placed on one of the many monitors next to Leigh. The SPARTAN left without a word and only a slight nod towards his fellow SPARTAN was needed for the two of them to leave, leaving him and Eryn completely alone and surrounded only by the sound of the beeping machines.

“Well…that was strange…” Eryn quipped.

“Apparently, one of them took Vera’s death to heart,” he absently replied. “I wonder what Leigh will make of it…and if she’ll accept and name that new blade…”

“Don’t know…” Eryn replied, “Vera was her mother…”

Not moments later did they see their commander and friend stir and blink sleepily awake and as Eryn pushed off from the railing she had been leaning on and bounded towards Leigh, Jake made an attempt to sit up as best as he could, barring some twinges of pain he received as his abdomen protested the movement. He saw her look around, a bit disoriented until Eryn pulled out the boot sheathe and broken blade and set it in front of her.

He saw the flash of sadness eclipse his friend’s face for a moment before disappearing back into the mask of stoicism that she constantly had on. But Eryn pointed to the blade sitting on one of the monitors and Leigh followed her hands and her eyes widened a bit in surprise. She gently picked up the blade in one hand while hefting the broke blade in the other and tested out the new blade’s balance.

“Who…where did this come from?” she asked.

“SPARTAN-one-zero-four,” he replied. “Took it from his shoulder armor casing…though I kind of suspect that it may be from the armory.”

“It can’t have been,” she said, still staring at both blades. “Corsica-carbide isn’t melded into standard issued-combat knives…it’s only embedded on certain blades from my homeworld… My mother and father both had custom-made Corsica-carbide blades from their time spent in the ground forces after Section Zero, but he took his when he was deployed…Mother gave me hers when I enlisted… How the hell did this type of blade end up on a SPARTAN-II?”

“Maybe they dropped onto your homeworld on a mission that Section Zero didn’t get wind of?” Eryn suggested.

“Eryn, my homeworld wasn’t a part of the Insurrection…we’re also near Earth…so it’s not plausible…” Leigh said, shaking her head a bit.

“So you’re going to keep it?” Jake asked, still a bit puzzled, but then again, he didn’t linger on mysteries too much, not with a much bigger threat looming out there in the form of the Covenant.

“Uh…I guess,” Leigh replied, shrugging a bit.

“Oh good…because that means they’ve really accepted us into their team, even if we’re only honorary members,” Eryn gleefully replied. “It’s like a ‘welcome to Blue, we’re going to make a great team’ gift…if you think of it that way.”

Both he and Leigh merely raised dubious eyebrows at their teammate and friend, but it was Leigh who said, “Section Zero’s going to have a field day if we work with them again…”

 

~*~*~*~


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 2.0: Nursery Rhymes**

 

_Three months after the Section Zero mission, 1 year after the events of The Babysitter…_

 

“O’Brien, what the hell are you doing here?”

“Got called in, same as you, Leigh,” the cocky voice of the red-headed ODST team leader drawled in a casual tone as five people made their way into the briefing room.

“Huh…well, glad to be working with you again, O’Brien,” Leigh said as she shook the hand of Padraig O’Brien, team leader of his small group of ODSTs. She had heard that before his former team had been massacred about six months ago on an orbital drop gone bad, he had worked with a SPARTAN. However, when she had looked into that particular mission file to assassinate a Prophet the traditional point-and-shoot way, the SPARTAN, numerical designation as 141 and named only as Cal, had been listed as MIA.

She and her team, now consisting of herself, Jake, Eryn, and two new additions that Section Zero had sent to them about a month-and-a-half ago, David and Xing-Hua, settled in their seats, their armors squeaking slightly in the seats. The enhanced suits of armor that they had been wearing for the better part of their active history had been replaced by a prototype armor that Section Zero had so conveniently lifted from their brethren in Section Three, though they had been briefed that it was still a prototype and far from being operational. Section Three had called the armor semi-powered infiltration, but Section Zero told them that the special photo-reactive panels that were supposed to be outfitted with the armor did not get added when they had lifted the technology. In short, it was an upgrade to their enhanced ONI Battle Armor with at least a better ballistic protection. It didn’t matter, for she was grateful that her team was now more adequately armored against the Covenant forces than they had before.

Her team knew what exactly David and Xing-Hua was, for they were not the typical one-point-ones and both were actually considered SPARTAN-II candidates before not making the cut. Section Zero had requisitioned them and using Doctor Halsey’s techniques, they had upgraded the two. However, due to the enormous amount of funding it took to construct a MJOLNIR armor, Section Zero did not attempt to construct the armors and instead, had outfitted them with the filched SPI prototypes. Both two-point-ones, for they were not the children of the two-point-zeros but had been upgraded to a two-point-zero, had been working in the far reaches of Section Zero before being transferred to her group for a more active role. However, their double augmentations meant they had more unpleasant side effects to deal with, and though she did not know the details, they had come with certain types of medications that could be discreetly taken.

However, this was not the first time that her team had worked with O’Brien and his team before, having been sent on a few drops with the ODST team to clear out suspected Covenant cells. The specialized ONI-constructed stealth ship, also known as _Perseus’s Rebellion_ , was also a familiar port of call for her team, but it was most definitely not a home-away-from-home. Still, at least it was a good place to get a good warm meal in the belly before being dropped on some cold, unforgiving world with only barely edible MREs to sustain the body.

As Eryn turned around and began chatting with the others, she turned in her seat a bit and casually asked, “So, how’s the food on your ship? Still as edible or did the hydroponics crash again?”

“Nah, they got that fixed,” O’Brien said, waving his hand a bit as he leaned forward a bit. “I see that you have two new squad mates…”

“Yeah,” she replied, keeping her voice as light as she prepared her lie. “Aitch-queue decided that we needed more people, and these two do give us a nice rounded edge…and certainly more eyes to watch out for the Covvies.”

“You can never go badly with extra firepower and eyes,” he replied, nodding a bit, though she could see the faint trace of sadness on his expression before it was sealed up. ODSTs took a lot of pride in their appearance and their training, and she knew that they had no fondness for the SPARTAN-IIs, though O’Brien’s case was a bit odd. Something happened on that mission where he worked with SPARTAN-141 to make him change his attitude towards SPARTANs, but she wasn’t here to change opinions or pry into anyone’s service history anyhow.

“So…what do you think this shindig is about?” she asked.

“I’m surprised they didn’t tell you anything...that’s a first,” he replied, giving her a cocky and slightly belittling grin.

“Can it, you,” she shook her head a bit in exasperation, “just because we get tossed around from ship-to-ship by the higher ups so much and you get a permanent home on _Verity In Malefic_ …we just got here about twenty minutes ago with only the orders to report to this briefing room.”

“So if they are sending my team, and you to bulk up the roster, then this is probably a high priority mission…or another clean out of a cell…” O’Brien said, tapping his chin.

She raised a dubious eyebrow, “So you don’t know either, eh?”

“Nope…and that’s kind of embarrassing…I mean how are you and I supposed to inspire all that confidence in our teams when we don’t even know jack shit about what’s going on?”

“Well,” she said, giving a small shrug, “at least we both know that it’s going to be a cell operation.”

“Yeah, but come on…you’d think that they’d tell me or at least give me an inkling…seriously…” he groused for a bit. “I swear, I even asked Commander Ferrico before we were sent to the room and he didn’t even say a thing…just gave me this strange grin…like he was a Cheshire cat or something.”

“Commander Ferrico grinning like a Cheshire cat is giving me a creepy image in my head,” Jake quipped from next to her. “If they actually broadcasted that image to the Covenant, maybe they’ll be scared enough to turn tail.”

“Commander on deck,” David cut in, silencing all of them as they stood up at attention, just as ONI-attached Commander Ferrico walked in. However, the commander was not alone for the distinct heavy, booted footsteps were heard on the deck and four SPARTAN-IIs followed the commander in, falling into the back of the briefing room.

“Please take your seats,” Commander Ferrico said as soon as he got to the tiny podium and dimmed the lights as he activated the projector through the podium.

Leigh sat at attention in her seat, her armor squeaking a bit, as did the rest of her team’s armor as they sat, but she dared not look back to see which SPARTANs had entered. She had a nasty feeling she knew which SPARTANs had been assigned to this mission, and that mean that this mission just became critical. For three distinct teams to be assembled on such a short notice for an op was unprecedented, and if they needed that many people, then how much firepower did they need against the Covenant they were sure to face? Rather yet, what was the type of Covenant forces they were going to face?

The thought chilled her a bit, but she returned her attention to the projector and Captain Ferrico as he began the briefing. “ONI’s network of probes has been tracking this particular Covenant fleet for the better part of two years now. Every time we have sent in forces to engage the fleet, they have aggressively attacked and have even glassed the remaining debris leftover from each engagement. It is quite unusual behavior, but our probes have found one particular ship that does not even linger long in the fight and always jumps to slipspace as soon as it can.”

As soon as the slightly fizzling probe footage from various battles with the fleet was complete, Commander Ferrico paused the image and zoomed in to show a grainy image of a Covenant ship that was almost hidden in the darkness of space. It looked like any other ordinary ship within the fleet, except for the fact that the paused footage did not show any missiles or plasma rounds being fired from it. In fact, it looked like it was high tailing out of the battle as fast as it could.

Leigh frowned a bit as Commander Ferrico continued, “One week ago, one of our probes discovered that this particular ship has landed on one of the worlds that we were supposed to colonize before the start of this war.” Two more grainy images popped up on the projector and the commander pointed to them, saying, “One of our probes got close enough before it was shattered by the asteroid belt circling the planet and sent back these images three days ago. The Covenant is obviously very protective of this ship and UNSC has placed this target as critical. You will be dropped onto the planet and you will destroy this ship, its facilities and whatever forces are on the ground.”

The projector dimmed and the lights were turned up as the commander clasped his hands behind his back and said, “You will be dropping in the southern region of the planet and will have to make your way up to the target. Intel estimates at least twenty Covenant ships orbiting the planet so expect heavy resistance as you get closer to the region. We will assist you with weaponry as best as we can in launch pods, but should we be discovered, then you know the drill. Pickup will be by our prototype stealth-Pelican on the dark side of the planet when we confirm that the objective has been completed.

“Second-class Petty Officers Larson and Dong are demolitions experts. Both of you should find sufficient demolition packs in the armory. SPARTAN-one-one-seventeen, you are in command.” His steely, hard gaze swept over all of them as he asked, “Any questions?” There was none. “You will launch in fifteen. Good luck and Godspeed.”

A clatter of noise followed the commander’s words as Leigh, her team, and the ODST team stood up and headed out, followed by the four SPARTANs. Glancing back as the mission sunk in, her hunch was right…all four SPARTANs of Blue Team were back. Given that the mission just became almost impossible, she was extremely glad to have the SPARTANs here…if no one else survived the course of the mission, she was sure that the SPARTAN-IIs would survive to get the mission done. SPARTANs were never KIA, they were always MIA.

She glanced over to her right as Xing-Hua walked in a hurried pace beside her, head down a bit, lost in thought. “I guess that means you get to blow shit up,” she said.

“Lots of shit, ma’am,” Xing-Hua nodded in agreement, a feral smile creeping up her face.

“Don’t count me out of it, sweetheart,” the drawling, heavily Earth-accented voice of Greg Larson, the ODST demolitions specialist said as he half-draped an arm around Xing-Hua. If looks could kill, Greg would have been dead in a heartbeat for even Leigh shrank back a bit as Xing-Hua turned and neatly shoved the unwelcome arm off her shoulder.

“Greg, hands off the lady,” O’Brien said as he turned back a bit while walking to address the wayward soldier. He slowed his pace down and as Leigh passed him, she turned a bit to see him match pace with SPARTAN-117, a bit of a comical sight of the slightly shorter-than-average ODST walking next to the seven-feet plus SPARTAN. As she continued to walk, turning back around to keep her eyes forward, she heard O’Brien say, “Padraig O’Brien, sir…most just call me O’Brien. It was an honor to work with Cal and be a part of her team. She was a gifted soldier and an exceptional person and it’s sad to see her listed as missing-in-action.”

There was a definite pause and the pace of the SPARTANs slowed considerably that she turned back to see O’Brien shaking SPARTAN-117’s hand. She was further startled when the SPARTAN replied, “Thank you.”

“Hey,” Jake whispered to her, nudging her to get her moving again, “let’s go.”

“Right,” she nodded, but then whispered to her second saying, “O’Brien must have taken SPARTAN-one-four-one’s death really hard…”

“Yeah, but I think he’s finally made his peace,” he replied.

Moments later, they arrived at the extremely well stocked and only armory port on the ship. Though she had seen the armory several times, never in her career has she seen it so full of ammunitions, weaponry, everything she could think of to throw at the Covenant in firearms, it was here. Like a child in a candy shop, the ODSTs went wild as soon as they saw the stockpile. Even the normally quiet and serious David whistled a bit in appreciation. However, as her squad mates and O’Brien’s team streamed farther in, she remained near the entrance, eyes fixated on the three rows of polished and expertly sharpened combat knives that were hanging from the wall; ten blades per row.

“Leigh…you can only carry so many talons with you…” Eryn’s voice floated across her ear.

She rolled her eyes slightly and tore herself away from the combat knives and headed towards the shotguns that lined a rack. Placing her helmet down on one of the pistol piles, she picked up one, hefted it to feel the weight and gave it an experimental cock before releasing it. Solid, steady, and not too tight…she liked it and turned back to the rack and plucked a few casings from the bottom of the rack and stuck it in a couple of the side pouches on her belt. The other pouches were going to be for her sniper rifle rounds and possibly a few food packs that were going to be pre-stored in the drop pod.

“Catch,” she heard Jake say as she looked up and caught the sniper rifle he threw to her. She didn’t mind that he had picked out a rifle for her, for she knew that every one of those things had to be self-calibrated to the user from the default factory settings. She would work on hers on the ground as they made their way northwards.

“Thanks,” she said, and walked over a couple of steps to where the ammunition for the rifle was kept. Strapping the rifle to her back where the hook on her armor _snitck_ ed securely with the weapon, she let it hang and picked up the necessary ammunition. Despite Commander Ferrico’s half-promise of help with weaponry, she knew that it was foolish to depend entirely on the fact that they would be restocked. They had to watch how much ammo they were using and had to make all of their shots count in the event that Commander Ferrico had to initiate the Cole Protocol. Hell, if he had to do that, then they weren’t getting off the rock and it would ultimately be mission failure no matter if they blew up their targets.

Making sure everything was secured tightly on her, she went back for her helmet and glanced back at the wall where the combat knives were located, just in time to see SPARTAN-104 pluck two blades from the wall. One was sheathed on the shoulder casing of his armor and the other on the same side as the first except in a waist compartment sheath. She had read up on the training dossiers of the SPARTANs and remembered that SPARTAN-104 had exceptional skills with combat blades.

But then again, she also knew who trained all the SPARTANs, so of course, they were going to be extremely proficient in all sorts of combat. Looking back down at her waist sheath for the blade currently sitting in it, she drew it out and took a long look at it before placing her shotgun down and reaching down to withdraw the broken blade from her boot sheath. Switching the blades, she sheathed the gifted Corsica-carbide blade into her boot and walked over to place the broken blade on one of empty wall hangs where a blade had occupied it. Vera was going to sit this one out; and she picked up one blade and sheathed it in her waist sheath.

Walking back to her helmet and shotgun, she picked up her shotgun and placed her helmet on, tapping green to send her status as ready while seeing a whole lot of winking lights from amber to green on the right side of her vision. There was no configuration needed, for as soon as Commander Ferrico had announced that SPARTAN-117 was in charge, the wireless that connected to the ship’s computers had automatically calibrated all of their helmets.

“Radio check,” the voice of SPARTAN-117 came though her internal speakers, sounding slightly tinny.

As each rattled off their names and readiness status, they made their way out of the armory and to the drop pod bay. She rolled her eyes at the sing-song call out of Greg, who no matter what mission they were on, always had a buoyantly cheerful outlook. To her, it was slightly annoying, not just because every single mission with O’Brien’s ODST team since Xing-Hua and David had been on her team; Greg had taken the opportunity to shamelessly flirt with Xing-Hua. She had tried to talk to O’Brien about it, and O’Brien had talked to Greg, but it didn’t help a lot.

Only a few technicians were in the pod bay and they climbed into the confining shell of a few specialized layers of armor and hard padding that would keep them safe from vacuum and superheated atmospheric plasma. As the technicians closed the pods and sealed them, one last transmission burst through their linked comms, and it was O’Brien who said, “See you on the dark side!”

 

* * *

 

Jake’s teeth clacked quite painfully together as soon as he hit dirt, but even before the pod’s door ejected half-way out, he was already moving into action. His battle rifle shot up and he sprang towards the ground, wary of any enemy forces. It was dark, but he could see quite well in the darkness, thanks to his augmentations. Listening very carefully, he could only hear the slightly muffled sounds of strange night creatures, but his tracker showed nothing except for the faint motion of another pod, and neither did his view of the place. Getting up from his crouch, he reached back into the pod and near the entrance edge he snatched the small pack that contained a few days worth of MREs and a small canteen of water.

He slung the small pack to his back where it sat securely next to his small pack of frag grenades. Two SMGs sat securely by his waist and his ammo packs were secured on his arms and feet. He took off running through the thick savannah grass towards the other pod and flashed green through the linked network to let the other person know that he was approaching. As he got closer, he saw that it was one of O’Brien’s men, Krakow, who was sighting him down his own assault rifle.

He got a wink of green in acknowledgement and Krakow pointed to his right, indicating that he had seen others drop in that area. With a curt nod, he and the ODST ran as best as they could through the thick grass, keeping a vigilant eye out for any signs of the enemy. As they continued to run, his tracker eventually showed several pods in the northerly direction and he turned to the left a bit with Krakow following on his heels. It took them a better part of a quarter of an hour, but eventually, all thirteen of them were recovered. However, without a sunrise or sunset, they could not calibrate where exactly in the southern hemisphere of the planet they landed in, so they headed northwards, the only direction they knew how to go.

 

When first light broke past the horizon on the atmospherically serene planet, they came to a halt as SPARTAN-117 waved them down to the ground, as he himself crouched and looked around. The SPARTAN then turned a bit and motioned for SPARTAN-087 to go ahead and scout. Not moments later did the dust from the female SPARTAN fade away as she dashed through the thick savannah grass as if it weren’t hampering her. He had to blink in surprise for reading about SPARTAN-087’s ability on paper was one thing, but actually seeing the speed that the SPARTAN had put on was another.

A crackle of his helmet’s speakers started, and then fizzled to the slightly tinny sound of SPARTAN-117’s voice saying, “Northwest.”

Lights of affirmation blinked across the right side of his vision as his helmet displayed the acknowledged orders and they continued on. SPARTAN-087 rejoined them just as they cleared the savannah and were now making their way through a highly exposed section of their journey on hot rocks that had been baked by the sun all morning long. However, it didn’t look like SPARTAN-087 had sustained any injuries, so Jake was a bit relieved that this section was not quite as dangerous as he thought it would be. But they had been traveling for the greater part of what he estimated to be probably almost twelve hours with almost non-stop running and one break to get hydrated.

As they continued to jog, he looked back to see the ODSTs starting to lag a bit, but they were keeping up as best as possible. However, with not a lot of knowledge of where they exactly were on the planet and how long it would take to get to their destination, running was the best. He wasn’t quite as tired as the ODSTs, but with a few more hours, he knew that he’d also be dragging his feet. They needed to rest, and he wondered if the SPARTANs knew that.

“Under the cover of the forest, near the river,” SPARTAN-117’s voice came over the broadcom, as he looked over towards where the group was headed. It was only a few klicks away, and he felt immense relief wash over him. A fresh, untouched river would have water that was clean enough to consume without distilling it first. His suit’s sensors that this world was completely habitable and was incredibly similar to all the other colonies except that it was untouched by Human hands.

It was only another half hour of running when they finally entered the forest and another quarter of an hour before they finally stopped. Jake saw O’Brien swaying slightly on his feet while both ODSTs, Nikolai and Krakow collapsed to the ground, clearly exhausted. The others were a bit more dignified when they sat, but as soon as he ripped his helmet off, the cool breeze blowing through the forest was a welcome relief to the stifling hot confines of his helmet. Surprisingly enough, the four SPARTANs also removed their helmets, revealing their pale, barely tanned faces. In his opinion, he thought that the SPARTAN-IIs in general spent way too much time in their suits, but most were in awe of them and even if they revealed their faces, many people would still be in awe or fear them.

“Sleep shift for six hours,” SPARTAN-117 said, as he pointed to several people to take shifts. “Nikolai, David, and I will take the first two hours. Fred, you have the next shift with O’Brien and Eryn. Kelly, Jake, and Krakow take the last one. Linda, find a place to observe, and Leigh, you’ll relieve her in three hours.”

From the tone that SPARTAN-117 had issued the orders, it was deliberate that he had left the two demolitions specialists off the list, but a quick look around told him that no one minded…at least not visibly. The demolitions guys were going to be key in this operation and even though in the end, it was just blowing stuff up, the packs that both Xing-Hua and Greg carried were quite sophisticated. ONI and the UNSC had definitely stockpiled their explosives with advanced researched and re-engineered technology. The demolition specialists were also technology specialists, able to rig up sophisticated chains of bombs and program warheads to detonate without the possibility of a ‘dumb’ AI able to hack the override. They needed their minds sharp and therefore, they were the only ones getting a full six hours of rest.

“I’m going to refill my canteen, anyone else want me to fill theirs?” Nikolai said after a few moments of letting the breeze cool them down.

“Here, and thanks,” he said, tossing his to the ODST who caught it and a couple of others. Despite the soft growling of his hungry stomach, he settled on sleeping first, knowing that he could sate his hunger when he took watch.

“I’ll help,” SPARTAN-087 said, startling Nikolai when she took a few of the other canteens and headed down to the river.

As they left, he heard the clatter of weapons and packs and slung his own from his back and set it to the ground. However, his pack of grenades stayed on his back and he unclipped the two SMGs off his waist before leaning the guns on his food pack. His rifle rested on his crossed legs and he leaned back against a cool outcropping of a rock. As he let his exhaustion catch up to him to send him to sleep, he took one last glance over to his left and saw O’Brien, Leigh and SPARTAN-058 quietly sharing a small datapad to calibrate their sniper rifles. If they ever had to lead a small contingent of Covenant forces into a gully trap, he would actually feel sorry for the Covenant since the trap would be sprung with two expert marksmen and a scarily fast sharpshooter.

 

* * *

 

“Leigh, wake up.”

There was a gentle pat on her arm, but she was already awake and aware of the slightly noisy atmosphere that was starting to surround the forest as the sun dipped below the horizon. Opening her eyes, it was still light out, but the light was rapidly fading and she got up while taking her sniper rifle with her, giving Eryn a nod of thanks. She picked up her helmet and jammed it onto her head. It was half-way though the second shift and she saw SPARTAN-104 and O’Brien watchfully walking around the tiny camp, alert for any suspicious activity. Eryn joined them and she headed up the small hill that she had seen SPARTAN-058 take before falling asleep three hours ago.

She gave a quick tap of green to let SPARTAN-058 that she was approaching and when she got to the spot the SPARTAN was perched, overlooking a small valley, it was nearly dark. The SPARTAN was a bit hard to make out at first, but as she let her eyes adjust to the night, she settled herself on the ground with her rifle out and gave a nod to the SPARTAN.

“Over the ridge of that hill,” SPARTAN-058 said through directcom, her voice a bit tinny-sounding. “Snipers, most likely Jackals, but they haven’t moved. No other contact.”

“Understood,” she replied, and peered through her scope, zooming to the highest possible setting to see the faint outlines of the enemy forces that were perched on top of the hill that was the easiest way to by-pass the mountains surrounding this area and the valley. As the SPARTAN almost silently lifted herself from the ground and descended, she contemplated shooting all three Jackals, but with no way to tell what was beyond the ridge, she did not shoot.

Time would be wasted for them to go around the valley and through the mountains, and time was not on their side, even if they had an ONI-advanced cloaked ship to support them. Though she kept mainly kept her scope on the three Jackals, she also made sure that no other advance guard or any wandering Covenant patrol.

 

Three hours later, they broke camp and she was relieved by SPARTAN-058. As soon as she told the SPARTAN of the no-changes status, she made her way down to the camp and found SPARTAN-117 issuing orders. She hurried to where her pack and shotgun were and transferred a small amount of food to a pouch, then strapped the canteen to her waist. The pack would stay as a relic to her time spent on this world. Her sniper rifle was strapped to her back and she picked up her shotgun and gave it a cursory check for any dirt that would hamper its firing.

“…as soon as Linda takes out the scouts. Covenant forces are most likely over the ridge, so destroy whichever structure is closest to your group then regroup five klicks to the west.” SPARTAN-117 was saying. “Leigh, you’re with Red Team.” SPARTAN-117 then stuck his helmet on, as did the rest of the group.

Flicking on her external speakers, she said, “Understood, sir.” Switching back to her internal speakers, she saw the others in the small camp start to separate themselves into two teams. Her HUD highlighted SPARTAN-117, Jake, Eryn, Krakow, and Greg as Blue Team, and she had a hunch that SPARTAN-058 was going to be a part of that team too. Red Team consisted of SPARTAN-104 as its leader, SPARTAN-087, herself, David, Nikolai, O’Brien, and Xing-Hua.

Jake approached her and they clasped hands while he said, “See you on the other side, Leigh.”

“Not unless I make it there first,” she replied, grinning even though he could not see her smile. She knew that her second-in-command would do quite well under SPARTAN-117 and would most definitely be able to hold his own against the Covenant, despite being shot quite a few times in the past. Still, this mission was critical and with the splitting of their forces, if one team failed, then it would be up to the other team to complete the task. They had to succeed in the possibility of destroying something precious to the Covenant; failure was not an option.

The haunting nighttime noise was muffled through her helmet as she followed the two SPARTANs on her team through the edge of the forest and to the right side of the valley. Blue Team took the left and as soon as they were out of broadcom range, she heard a squelch through her helmet’s speakers as the internal wireless network reconfigured for a smaller area. Running as quickly as they could without letting the flutter of their footsteps kick up dead leaves or scare too many nighttime animals, they arrived at their designated target point.

Not moments later did she see a faint rustle in the high hill ahead and knew that the Jackals had been quickly shot. The right corner of her HUD instantly winked green and like ghosts prowling the night, they surged up the right side of the hill just as Blue Team surged up the left side. Cresting the ridge, she could see nothing except for the inky darkness punctuated by only a brief burst of purplish-white light from Covenant forces in the valley beyond the mountains. Red Team streamed to the right, hugging the rocky and somewhat slippery mountain side as Blue Team took to the left. As her eyes quickly adjusted to the random bursts of light dotting the valley below, she saw that they were headed towards the hunted Covenant ship.

Minutes later, they halted at the faint outline of SPARTAN-104’s fist was held up. Dropping to the ground, a couple of them had to dig into the rocky ground to find purchase and to prevent them from slipping too much and letting loose rocks slide down the steep mountain side. Leigh couldn’t see anything ahead of her for it was so inky black compared to the faint outlines of structures and various Covenant patrols in the valley that were outlined by the bursts of light.

“Red-three,” the curt voice of SPARTAN-104 came over the tightbeam com that had been set up by him while they were approaching the crested hill.

She had been designated as Red-three and quickly but carefully got up into a crouch and hurried over to the faint outline of where she could see both Red-two SPARTAN-087 and Red-lead SPARTAN-104 kneeling on the rocky soil. “Yes, sir,” she said, having a hunch that her sniper rifle was needed. The shotgun was quietly hooked to her back and the sniper rifle came off and she sighted through the scope.

“One at ten-o’clock, one at noon, both dead horizontal and one at two about thirty from horizontal,” SPARTAN-104 said.

“Yes, sir,” she said, though through her scope, she couldn’t see much except for inky darkness that had a slight backwash from the enhanced scope’s pickup of the scattered lights in the valley. How SPARTAN-104 saw the targets was beyond her, for her own augmentations to the vision were exceptional, but they were only experimental in nature. However, she did trust the SPARTAN’s judgment and fired off the three rounds as quickly as she could, though the last one was a bit tricky since she had to lean back a bit to get the correct height. It caused her to slip a little on the loose soil, but a steady, heavy hand landed on her ankle that was pressed into the dirt, and she fired the last shot.

“Kills confirmed,” SPARTAN-104 said before she pulled back from her scope viewing to see SPARTAN-087 release the steadying hand off her ankle.

She gave a nod of thanks and saw SPARTAN-104 using hand signals to plan out their map of attack; gesturing for them to head down the slope at a descent angle of about forty-five which would take them into a dark portion of the valley that was not lighted. Then they would infiltrate the ship, find its core systems, set the explosives on a timer and get out.

As simple as the plan was, Leigh had a hunch that something was going to go wrong, but she refrained from commenting. Darkness was their best friend on this mission, but with twenty Covenant ships hovering over them in space, there were bound to be cloaked Elites and other lethal forces on the ground. Their main job was to make sure that Xing-Hua got to the core and torch the place.

Winks of green acknowledged the plan and they started their descent into the inky darkness of the valley. Leigh kept her sniper rifle out, following the two SPARTANs closely in case there were more enemy snipers about that they needed to get rid of. As soon as the slope flattened out, her eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness and she saw the faint outlines of several structures ahead of her. Amber light suddenly winked on the right corner of her HUD and the team halted and crouched, looking warily around for any sign of the enemy. Out of the corner of her eyes and barely in the view of her helmet, she saw SPARTAN-087 slowly slink out of view. Her HUD also showed David slinking out of view towards the opposite end of the group.

Two faint snaps of bone or cartilage being broken were heard through their helmets and both David and SPARTAN-087 quickly returned and the team hurried on. As they slipped out of the dark field and into dimmer, more noticeable areas of the valley, she hooked her sniper rifle back onto her armor and brought her shotgun to the forefront. The team stopped near a structure, their armors scraping softly against the moss and lichen covered stone and she noticed that even with the barely visible atmosphere around her, the structures they had encountered so far were similar to the ones that they had seen the last time her strike team and the four SPARTANs had worked together.

Beyond the structure and the blanket of semi-darkness was the hunted Covenant ship except that several pods of light were illuminating sections of the ship, and they all happened to be what looked like good entrance or exit ports. Unfortunately, with the light angled at just the right spot and the illumination just barely bright enough, she spotted the telltale ripple of cloaked Elites walking in a perimeter around the ship. They were definitely not going to make it inside the ship without being spotted.

“Red-three, Red-six,” SPARTAN-104’s voice crackled a bit over the tightbeam transmission.

Both she and O’Brien merely winked their lights green in acknowledgement and turned about, dissappearing to the other side of the building and climbed as fast as they could over the slippery structure and vines that decorated the place. Peering over the ledge, they saw no one on the structure’s rooftop and belly-crawled until they were near the edge. Unhooking her rifle off her back, she placed her shotgun near her and sighted through her scope. There were only two faintly blurred outlines of Elites she could see out of her scope. Steadying her breathing and quieting the thoughts in her mind, she fired off three shots as fast as she could and barely heard the muffled shots on O’Brien’s rifle fire at the same time.

“Four down, Red-lead,” O’Brien said over the tightbeam.

“West landing ramp looks clean for now, sir,” she said, sighting through her scope. “We’ll cover you.”

Green lights winked in acknowledgement and she saw the team quickly approach the insertion point, but as she tracked them going up the open ramp, she saw the tiniest sliver of a slightly blurred movement coming from the opposite side of the ship and quickly fired. The cloaked Elite was downed, but another patrolling Elite smacked straight into the unmoving hidden body and gave an almighty roar, immediately spotting the infiltrating team and fired its plasma rifles at them. She downed that Elite as quickly as the first, but the alarm was already sounded. As more and more Covenant forces streamed out of their structures, the valley became awash in a blaze of light.

Both she and O’Brien tried to take down as many Grunts, Elites, and Jackals as possible, but they were spotted and in turn, the hail of plasma and needles were directed towards them. They ducked and scrunched back into the rooftop as pellets of sharp rocks and shrapnel from the needlers breaking on the structure. The roar of Elites streaming onto the rooftop, which to her always sounded something like ‘wort-wort-wort’, caused the two of them to turn around and unleash bullets upon the intruders. A hail of bullets from O’Brien’s battle rifle and the punctuated shots from her shotgun pumped by her trigger hand by a strong up-and-down motion to get the hand grip to ratchet while her other hand held onto the sniper rifle, slowed the oncoming forces down just a sliver of a second, but it was not enough.

O’Brien suddenly used his free hand, his sniper rifle lying haphazardly to his side and flung a grenade towards the surge of Covenant forces that were streaming to the roof. Both of them instantly turned around and leapt off the roof as the proximity of the frag exploded, propelling them more forward than their simple, desperate leap. They were fortunate that those that had been firing on the rooftop from below had diverted their attention to the forces at the mouth of the ship.

Landing in a heap, Leigh quickly rose to her feet, having slung her sniper rifle on her back when they had leapt, and dragged the stunned O’Brien up, urging him to move. Now that she had both hands on the shotgun, she fired off her rounds as quickly as she could, as she and the ODST ran towards the rapidly closing belly of the ship. She felt the multiple hits of plasma impact her armor, the internal temperature instantly rising as the cooling failed and pain shoot throughout her body as a few hits scored onto her armor, fusing the layers into her skin, but she continued to fire and with what seemed like long agonizing minutes of plowing through a horde of Covenant, both she and O’Brien finally slipped into the ship just as the bay door closed.

Dozens of the enemy lay dead on the floor of the ship, downed by bullets and grenades, and through the com, she heard O’Brien groan a bit and turned to see him yank two needles out of his arm before quickly applying biofoam to the gaping wounds. She reloaded her shotgun and finally noticed that despite the harrowing near-death for all of them; the rest of the team was looking warily around the ship in stunned silence.

Ignoring the flare of pain, she glanced up and around her surroundings and saw hundreds of small pods filled with sickly-looking fluid that contained miniature versions of Grunts without their methane packs. There were also some strange looking things that looked similar to Jackals, a few odd looking worm-like creatures, and a few more oddities she couldn’t identify. These pods were covering the walls and ceiling as far as her eyes could see. “Red-leader,” she said over the com, “what the hell are we looking at?”

Instead of SPARTAN-104 who answered, it was Xing-Hua who said, “I think it’s a Covenant nursery.”

 

~*~*~*~


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 2.1: BYOB (Bring Your Own Bomb)**

 

When the alarm blared across the valley and the lights were thrown ablaze, his first immediate thought was that they had been detected, but with the harsh cry of the Covenant streaming to the far side of the camp, he realized that it was Red Team who had set off the alarm. As he and the others flattened themselves against the shadows of the columns of the structure they were currently hugging, he could hear the fierce firefight erupting on the far side and could also see the hunted Covenant ship starting to close its belly.

“Lay the charges and draw their fire away from Red Team,” SPARTAN-117 said over directcom.

Winks of acknowledgement flittered across Jake’s HUD as he and the others took to the rooftops and Greg went scurrying into one of the structures and began laying down his minefield of explosives. Confident that SPARTAN-058 had eliminated all the snipers in their area and was taking out more that littered the field, he climbed the slippery roof and belly crawled until he was set up at the edge. Priming a few grenades, he lobbed them towards the bunched groups of Covenant forces trying to get into the sealed ship.

“Blue-lead, I think I just found their food source…and it’s deep…and highly flammable,” the voice of Greg crackled over his helmet’s internal speakers. He didn’t hear SPARTAN-117’s reply that well for he started firing as soon as the Covenant forces’ attention was diverted to them and they started to stream towards them.

Gunfire erupted from the rooftops of a couple of structures as they mowed down the charging Elites, but was cut short as Shades erupted from hidden compartments dug into the valley ground and splattered them with a hail of plasma. Jake swore as flecks of debris and plasma burned across his vision and armor as he quickly flattened himself as best as possible on the rooftop. When there was a brief break between firing, he popped back up and snapped off a few shots, taking out at least two grunts that were near one of the Shades, before the Shade started to fire at him again. But only seconds later did the Shade fall silent, its gunner sniped by SPARTAN-058.

He quickly leapt off the rooftop and landed on the ground, rolling before unloaded a clip of bullets at the incoming horde. Reloading as he ran towards the unmanned Shade, he ducked and dodged needles and plasma rounds that sent dirt biting up into his freely bleeding wounds where his armor no longer fully protected him. Lobbing yet another grenade towards the crazily running Grunts, he finally reached the Shade and leapt into the seat. Each weapon, no matter if it was Human or Covenant, had only one basic mechanism that was the same for both forces, a trigger. Grabbing what looked like hand grips, he swung the beast around and hammered scores of red plasma home on several Grunts and Jackals.

As he mowed down the incoming forces, he saw SPARTAN-117 join the path he was creating and charge ahead. Other Shades were rapidly falling silent, but some were still being replenished with Covenant forces streaming towards them. Krakow had managed to commandeer another Shade and was helping the rooftop extermination by taking out several more Elites and Grunts trying to flank them.

When the plasma grenades started to fly, that was when he decided to call it quits and leapt out of his Shade just as multiple harsh glowing blue balls landed on the Shade. It exploded with quite a force, propelling him face-first into the ground, causing him to lose his grip on his assault rifle as it went flying into the fray. His head smashed painfully against the helmet but he recovered enough to roll and unhook his two SMGs, firing as he rolled up, staggering his rate of fire in both hands. Methane packs and the squeals of Grunts filled the air as they ate his bullets at close range, but he slowly backed up towards where SPARTAN-117 was holding a good amount of ground with his assault rifle.

“Krakow, get out!” Eryn’s voice shouted over the com.

“Too late! I’m stu--” Krakow’s last words ended in a fizzle as another explosion high above on the rooftops sent scattered plasma, metal, and dirt raining down on SPARTAN-117 and him.

“Blue-five, status!” SPARTAN-117 barked as both he and Jake stood back-to-back, keeping the Covenant forces at bay as best as they could.

“Ready to blow in ten seconds!” Greg’s strained voice could barely be heard.

“What’s wrong, Blue-five?!”

“Fucking black-armored Elites are swarming the place. I’m trapped, but I can still blow this place to kingdom come! Go!”

Fiery pain bloom across Jake’s chest as a direct plasma hit sent him reeling and a part of his chest armor completely melted away. Instinct overtook his senses as he unloaded both SMGs into the Elites that had joined the fray, feeling himself being dragged up by the scruff of his suit by SPARTAN-117. “Center of the camp. Keep drawing away their fire!” SPARTAN-117 ordered. “Blue-two, meet us there!”

Jake managed to comply with the order as adrenaline pumped through his body, dulling the pain and he threw a frag grenade into the crowd, causing a temporary stop in the plasma fire. Another temporary stop in plasma fire by SPARTAN-117’s grenades gave them the opportunity to sprint out of their cornered place. He ran as fast as he could, tailing SPARTAN-117, tasting blood with each breath he took and knew that his wound was really bad. He also only had a few clips left for his guns, with the rest of the ammo he carried useless to him unless he had his assault rifle.

He could hear the angry howls of the Covenant forces streaming after them, trying to box them in from all sides, but moments later, he was again, thrown painfully to the ground cracking his helmet’s front plate. It was not by grenades this time, and was by a violent explosive force that sent a harsh white light soaring into the sky and a superheated wash of wind charging down all avenues of the camp, destroying flimsy structures within the camp and crumbling a lot of moss-and-vine covered stone structures.

He managed to scramble to his feet as quickly as he could, but was ultimately half-dragged by SPARTAN-117 into the far side of a structure to be used as cover. “Cover!” he dimly heard the voice of the SPARTAN shout through the com as a wash of static blared through as the superheated air blew past them. He turned, exposing his armored back, trying to keep his open chest wound from being boiled. Static hissed across his ears and his cracked faceplate fizzled as the wireless signal was lost and reset. He couldn’t see anything and the spidering crack was not helping. Anymore extensive damage and there was a good chance that the prototype helmet would explode from all the overheated wiring that was fed through the helmet.

He had to doff the helmet, but it was too dangerous for him to do so. When the wash of superheated air passed by them, leaving an eerily quiet wake, several thumps were heard and he instinctively ducked as a whoosh was heard and an oblong object landed not a few feet away from him in the middle of the alleyway he and SPARTAN-117 had been running in. When the dust cleared, he realized that Commander Ferrico had indeed lived up to his promise of weapons help.

He cautiously peeked out from the crumbled wall and saw nothing but the dust and fallen structures left behind from the explosion. He ran to the closest pod and cracked it open and was rewarded by a sight he was incredibly glad to see. Snapping his SMGs back to his waist carriers, he hefted out a rocket launcher and a backpack of missiles. He unloaded the useless assault rifle clips he carried and with a nod from SPARTAN-117 who had quickly restocked his own ammunition from another pod, they ran.

“Blue-two, Blue-four, status!” SPARTAN-117 said as they ran through the now eerily silent camp that was littered with half-burned corpses of the Covenant forces.

“Never say die, Blue-lead,” Eryn said, sounding extremely tinny through Jake’s helmet. “Blue-two is charging the hill and sweeping the eyes away.”

There was an awful squeal through their wireless com network as a new voice blared through, saying, “…repeat, extraction in ten minutes, five klicks west. Do you copy?”

“Copy, Home,” SPARTAN-117 said. The network had been reset to broadcom, but then again, there wasn’t anymore need for secrecy. “Red Team, status!”

There was a long pause before the voice of SPARTAN-104 crackled through, saying, “Copy Home transmission, Blue-lead. We’ll be there in five.”

 

* * *

 

“Fuck this shit,” Leigh barely heard the muttered curses coming from Nikolai as they jogged through alien corridors filled with so many small pods that it was starting to become creepy. “How the fuck can they even produce babies?!”

“Can it, Red-five,” SPARTAN-104 ordered. “Red-two, play rabbit…we’re definitely not alone.”

Only a silent nod was received and SPARTAN-087 took off ahead and into a branched corridor. Moments later, there was the sound of a shotgun being unloaded into flesh and armor and the angry snarls of Elites that charged after the rapidly fading boots on the hard floor of the ship. Even with a bunch of cloaked Elites drawn off their tail, there were bound to be more, but with the clearly audible baying of the forces outside, they had little time to be cautious. They continued on in their hurried pace.

“Red-seven, status?”

“According to the pad, a few more turns and we should be near the core,” Xing-Hua answered. “The only problem is that everywhere I turn, it gives me off-the-chart readings. This whole place is a mausoleum of power.”

It only took them a few minutes to get to the door that Xing-Hua had determined to be one of the many access points to the core, but each minute that passed as agonizingly slow as both David and O’Brien kept checking their flanks, making sure that nothing was following them. SPARTAN-104 had taken point, but there was still no sign from SPARTAN-087.

“Shit,” Xing-Hua cursed as she hooked the datapad up and tried to slice through the security. “There’s no way I can get through, not without an AI…this is way too complicated…”

Leigh tuned her squadmate out as something seemed to flit across her vision as she stood guard near the entrance to this corridor. Both O’Brien and Nikolai were also with her, and one of them asked, “Did you see that?”

“Yeah,” she replied. There was no doubt about it, cloaked Elites had found them. “Heads up, we’ve got company,” she said over directcom as she brought up her shotgun and fired at nearly point blank range, the fuzzed air that was coming towards her and the other two ODSTs.

“Bam, said the lady,” Nikolai quipped over the com as several Elites uncloaked themselves and let loose their plasma rifles while a well-timed shot from O’Brien splattered the blood of an Elite who was about to swipe Leigh’s head off her shoulders with an energy sword.

She ducked as purplish-blue blood and pieces of the Elite’s mandibles flew everywhere and punched a shot into the armor of the creature, felling it. She continuously moved forward from her position, dodging as best as she could, the plasma fire as she saw SPARTAN-104 charge and smash straight into an Elite. The half-ton weight bore down and crushed the chest of the Elite, but SPARTAN-104 was not finished yet and let loose half-a-clip into the Elite’s face before engaging two more. She continued to fire as fast as she could while David, O’Brien, and Nikolai laid down a hail of bullets with their rifles. Two primed grenades suddenly flew in the air and with the call of “fire in the hole” from one of the ODSTs, she momentarily ducked her face away as the explosions tore through the confines of the intersecting halls.

The sounds of a second shotgun sang with the screams of rage and chorus of plasma and metal as SPARTAN-087 finally joined in the fray, catching the Elites off guard. The rapid succession of ‘bam, bam, bam’ downed three Elites as they each caught a face full of SPARTAN-087’s shotgun shells, and as some turned to regard this new demonic threat, Leigh, O’Brien, David, and Nikolai popped them off for not paying attention. With the Elite’s mainly fixated on the two SPARTANs, it made life a whole hell lot easier for them, but the sudden agonized cry from Nikolai blasted through the com and she saw him go down.

O’Brien immediately pulled his teammate back towards where Xing-Hua was working on rigging up something to get either the door open or something else, Leigh didn’t know, but she and David stepped out in front of the two ODSTs to cover their retreat. Only moments later did the shorter-than-average ODST charge back out to the battle, rifle blazing ahead of him. She advanced again, pumping the shotgun as fast as she could, but more and more just kept on coming. They would not be able to hold their position if more continued to stream into the small intersection.

Plasma splashed across her armor as she ducked behind a pile of dead Elites, fusing more to her skin while one punched a nasty hole into her side. She hissed in pain as adrenaline dulled most of it, preventing her from going into full shock and threw her waist-sheathed combat blade into the Elite that had hit her. Beyond that Elite that stood rock still for a moment with a UNSC standard talon sticking out of its face, she saw SPARTAN-104’s deadly dance with an energy sword in one hand and a plasma rifle in another.

On the far side of the confined place, SPARTAN-087 continued to pour her shotgun rounds into the enemy forces while throwing grenades into adjacent corridors to keep any reinforcements at bay. What seemed like forever, but only a few minutes in reality, it seemed that SPARTAN-087’s grenades were doing the trick and no more black-armored Elites were coming to face them…or judging from the pile of dead bodies, building up, they were on the last verges of eliminating a squad.

As her shotgun clicked zero, empty of shells and having no more ammo to supply it with, she tossed the empty weapon to the ground while ducking to pick up a plasma rifle to finish off an Elite, multiple shots burned into her back, burning straight through her armor and into flesh. As she stumbled forward, bullets from David’s rifle peppered the Elite who had shot her while both SPARTAN-087’s shots and O’Brien’s shots killed the other Elite she had been trying to take down.

Within another few minutes, the last remaining Elite was downed by a hail of plasma and a sword stabbed straight through its body, and an eerie silence fell upon the place. Leigh forced herself up, stumbling slightly until David caught her by her arm in a firm grip and help her steady herself. Nodding a thanks, she and her teammate hurried back, but not before David injected biofoam into his own gaping wounds and tossed her the can. When she finally stopped in front of where Xing-Hua and the gravelly wounded Nikolai were, she applied the temporary medical patch up to herself, noting that Nikolai’s wounds, despite the amount of biofoam pouring out of his armor, looked really bad.

The ship suddenly rocked and tipped to the side, causing them to fall in a heap and the dead bodies to slide everywhere on the blood-slicked floor, and they crashed painfully against the wall which was now the floor. “Fuck, that was Greg’s charges,” Xing-Hua said after they recovered.

“Can you get me in, Red-seven?” SPARTAN-104 asked, looking worse for wear, having taken the brunt of the Elites’ assault, as did SPARTAN-087. But both looked like they could still go for another round or two.

“No can do, sir,” Xing-Hua replied, “but I can possibly rig up some backdoor trap to maybe get the doors open. If I can use the bio signs from one of us as a bypass, then maybe it’ll open the door, since this ship is pretty much organically controlled. However, it’ll only happen if the person is hooked up alive and then dies. One other problem, sir…I have wired as much as I can of the explosives from this terminal to try to draw on the power throughout the ship, but if the door opens, I can wire the rest, but with the damage the casings for the explosives have taken, everything will have to be triggered manually--”

“Sir, I volunteer to stay,” both Leigh and Nikolai said at the same time, beating the rest of the team to the punch.

“Negative on that, Leigh,” Nikolai wheezed, coughing up mucus and blood that splattered on his helmet’s faceplate, “you’re too pretty to die like this.”

Just as she was about to retort, SPARTAN-104 cut in and said, “If the door doesn’t open, are there enough chained charges to wipe this ship out?”

“Yes sir, but if I can chain up the core too, it’ll blow this valley to hell and back…and sir, I’m not leaving, even if I have to hook my bio signs up to the terminal.”

There was a sudden squeal through the internal com network that caused almost everyone to wince a bit as a voice blared through, saying, “…repeat, extraction in ten minutes, five klicks west. Do you copy?”

SPARTAN-117’s voice came through the broadcom saying, “Copy, Home. Red Team, status!”

SPARTAN-104 was silent for a long moment before answering over broadcom, “Copy Home transmission, Blue-lead. We’ll be there in five. Red-two, Red-three, Red-four, and Red-six, move out.”

Those named by SPARTAN-104 reluctantly turned and left, but not before their leader left an ample supply of assault rifle clips near Nikolai who had finally shed his helmet. As their team lead joined them and they started to jog at a brisk pace through the winding corridors; they barely heard Nikolai’s last words to them, “Give ‘em hell!”

 

* * *

 

Unnatural silence eclipsed the place as both teams caught up with each other near the center of the camp. With weapons somewhat replenished, they now charged towards the pickup point while SPARTAN-104 informed the other team of the plan of action. Leigh had dropped the plasma rifle in favor of wielding two SMGs and had also dropped the sniper rifle she had been carrying, for she needed less weight on her back to run faster, due to her wounds. The group skidded to a halt as soon as they saw the lumbering forms of a Hunter-pair step out from the shadows and into the dimly flickering lights on the edge of the Covenant camp.

They scattered just as both Hunters fired their fuel rod cannons from behind their enormous shields. Green washed over their heads, nicking a few on the edges of their armor, but none of them were hurt. When the cannons paused for a second as the Hunter-pair adjusted their aim, six of them popped up and sprayed bullets, covering Jake, David, and SPARTAN-104 who darted towards the exposed sides of the Hunters, carrying rocket launchers. The three fired multiple salvos of missiles, some impacting the shields and armor and only two of them managed to nick the sides of one of the Hunters, causing a small gush of dark orange blood to pour out.

The enormous beasts roared and fired their cannons, carving a path on the ground around them as the three jumped for cover. However, David was not fast enough to leap behind a downed, crumbling stone structure and took a direct hit that completely vaporized half of his body. What was left of the missile launcher he carried and the backpack of missiles exploded, showing the area of flecks of superheated metal. As most of their stone covers exploded from the force that the fuel rod cannons were pouring into the rock, they ran, circling the Hunters, firing off their weapons, hoping to confuse the two enough to let Jake and SPARTAN-104 rip through them with their missiles. It worked, and as the two giants collapsed, the familiar sounds of a Covenant dropship were heard.

“Go!” SPARTAN-117 shouted over broadcom, just as turret fire from the dropship started to pelt the area they were standing in.

Leigh ran as fast as she could, ignoring the flaring pain of her wounds and pounded through the dirt, towards what her fizzling HUD was indicating as their pickup point. It was only five klicks away, but those five klicks seemed like infinity as the plasma turrets burned behind and around her. She saw the two holding rocket launchers turn back a bit and fire off their rounds before turning again to run as the angry swarm of returning fire rained down upon them. Dodging and leaping around holes carved by the dropship’s turrets, she dimly heard the roar of Covenant reinforcements as they dropped from their ship and started to charge towards them.

Both Jake and SPARTAN-104 turned and fired off another salvo of missiles, before she heard over broadcom, SPARTAN-117 ordering, “Kelly clear the way!”

Up ahead, she saw SPARTAN-087 surge ahead to pick off any ambush or people that may have escaped the blast created by Greg’s charges while the rest of them tore through the thick forest. Her timer was also rapidly counting down as she and O’Brien turned back to lay some covering fire for the rocket launchers to fire off their last missiles before dumping the heavy things and drawing their secondary weapons. As she and the three others turned and continued to run, she saw Eryn, SPARTAN-117, and SPARTAN-058 splatter a few Jackals that had survived while SPARTAN-087 rounded back, letting them know that their last two klicks to the pickup point was clear.

Two klicks and nearly running empty on ammo later, they finally made it to the drop point, only to see nothing in front of them. As the infuriated howls of the Covenant forces grew in volume, the Pelican suddenly appeared before them and its belly dropped open just as its thrusters started to fire. Leaping onto the rising aircraft, Leigh held onto a handhold near the entrance and grabbed a hold of O’Brien to lift him into the aircraft as the SPARTAN-IIs leapt into the belly themselves. Jake was next and despite the agonizing pain she felt as her wounds tore open again from lifting her teammate up, she resolutely ignored it. Eryn was the last up, but just as the Pelican accelerated and the bay doors started to close, the Covenant forces finally caught up to them.

Plasma and needles peppered the ship and stray needles managed to slip through the closing crack and hit her on her shoulder while three others tore straight through Eryn’s armor and through her spine and heart. The impact caused her to fall back and Eryn collapsed on top of her. Jake pounced, pulling Eryn off her as she scrambled up and reached for the dented can of biofoam still miraculously secured in its place on her waist. She tore off Eryn’s helmet, but the woman had a dazed look and flecks of foamy blood was already pooling out of her lips.

“Stay with me, Eryn!” she cried, forcing her teammate to look at her with rapidly fading eyes. “Stay with me…” she whispered as the light quickly dimmed from her teammate’s eyes and then she was no more. Stunned, she could only sit there, cradling her dead teammate’s body as what had just happened, all those deaths for a single mission, crashed upon her. She was dimly aware that Jake had reached over to close Eryn’s lifeless eyes, only aware that it was one more death too much for her to bear.

“One down…two to go out of the ten of us,” she whispered more to herself than to anyone else.

 

~*~*~*~


	5. Chapter 5

**Epilogue: Ghosts**

 

Leigh awoke to the sharp, sterile smell of a medical bay and a slightly cool, recycled air that was blowing around in a light breeze. As her eyes opened and she found herself staring at the familiar ceiling of _Persesus’s Rebellion_ ’s medical ward. Pain was not wracking her body, and she shifted a bit under the starchy covers, feeling that all limbs were still attached and the stitches she had were pulling a bit. She wondered how many organs they had to flash clone, but her thoughts immediately took a turn as she thought about those who died.

She remembered cradling Eryn’s lifeless body as the prototype stealth-Pelican bucked and evaded the Covenant ship that was chasing after it as they plowed through the atmosphere. It was only through the trigger of the rigged bomb to the core of the hunted Covenant ship that they managed to lose the forces chasing after them. They were quickly scooped up by _Persus’s Rebellion_ , and fled into Slipspace, using multiple vectors to maximize their means of throwing the enemy off. It was when they were finally safely cloaked again and orbiting a star that the belly of the Pelican finally dropped and the medics streamed in. She remembered that the medics had to yank Eryn from her and that one of the SPARTANs had lifted her off the ground and helped her off the ship. After that, she didn’t remember anything else.

She lifted her head a bit and looked around as her thoughts quieted to the back of her mind, though her heart was still heavy. Around her were a few empty beds, which was puzzling for she thought that there had been more injured personnel aboard the ship when it was trying to escape. Jake was lying in a bed a couple of empty ones away, and O’Brien was still sleeping in his further up from where she was. Surprisingly, all four SPARTANs were also confined to beds, though it looked like one of them, SPARTAN-087 was in a deep sleep.

She speculated it was because of the SPARTAN-II’s that they were confined to an isolated part of the medical bay, but then why stick her, Jake, or O’Brien with them too? Shaking her head slightly, she knew that she would never be able to puzzle out ONI’s intention, even if she was a part of the secretive organization. This was their ship, so it was their rules. All of those who served aboard the ship were cleared with extensive background checks and constantly monitored, so there would be no leak of information. But it still puzzled her as to why O’Brien, an ODST and certainly far removed from the ranks of ONI, was confined with them.

Gathering her strength, she pushed herself up and swung her legs over and hopped to the floor. At first, she was a bit unsteady but as she continued to hold the bed to steady herself, she felt the coldness of the floor seep through her bare feet. It didn’t help that the medical gown she was shucked into provided little warmth from the cool air blowing around. Fortunately for her, there happened to be a thin robe sitting on one of the empty beds next to her, but there were no medical bay slippers in sight. She took the robe and stuck it on, feeling just a tad bit warmer.

“Where are you going?” Jake hoarsely asked as she started to slowly walk towards the wing’s entrance.

“I’ll be back,” she said, turning a bit. She had to do this herself. As Eryn’s commander, it was her a part of her duties to see that the woman’s family received a small measure of peace after they had willingly letting Section Zero have their way. She could not leave it to the SPARTAN-II’s to take responsibility for it, even if SPARTAN-117 had been in charge of the operation.

The short trip she took down to the morgue was uneventful, with the corridors surprisingly empty. She saw scores of blackened areas on the ship where the electronics had fried and blown up, along with various tubes and wires hanging out from ceilings and compartments. How many had been injured and how many had been killed, she wondered, but pushed it aside as she approached the entrance to the morgue and keyed in her alpha-numeric access code.

There was a soft tone of acknowledgement and the door quietly slid open, letting a blast of cold air out. She shivered a bit but descended the cold steps until she reached the area where the dead bodies were stored. There was already someone in the crypt, and that someone was examining Eryn’s body. “Doctor Halsey,” she stated as the plexi-glass doors to the crypt slid open and she slowly walked in.

The woman who was dressed in a starchy white lab coat that covered her muted light grey suit and pleated skirt looked up, pushing her glasses slightly up her nose with a wrist. Her hands were covered in sterile gloves and a datapad was bleeping softly next to the body of Eryn. Said datapad was also connected to the inside of the Y-incision created when the morgue officer had performed an autopsy on Eryn, by wires. “Yes?” Dr. Halsey asked, a bit of an impatient tone in her voice.

“May I ask what you might be doing to that body?” she politely worded her question.

“Examining it,” the doctor replied as if it was the obvious and nothing else concerned her. “You shouldn’t be up, considering you and the rest of your team were heavily injured.”

She bristled in anger at the doctor’s words…but kept it from her face and carefully controlled her voice, saying, “What team? I’m a part of the crew, Doctor.”

“Don’t play games with me,” Dr. Halsey said, irritation creeping into her voice. “I saw you, along with the other two and my Spartans, in the medical bay after they called me in. Commander Ferrico has given me authorization to examine this body and I suggest that you leave.”

“Find anything interesting?” she asked, not budging from her spot, even if the doctor was glaring daggers at her. She would not be easily frightened by her, and she knew that anyone else, save for perhaps Jake, would have just turned and left. “As you probably already know, she was killed by needlers, so I don’t think there’s anything so special about her body that needs to be examined by someone like you.”

The cool, calculated gaze that Dr. Halsey gave her was intended to scare her, but she continued to hold her ground as long, tense minutes passed. Finally, the doctor relented a bit and said, “This woman was a part of your team, wasn’t she?”

“Yes,” she bluntly replied and reached over to rip the small chain with the dogtags that Eryn so loved dearly off her deceased friend and teammate’s neck.

“Those are not her dog tags…no one even uses dog tags anymore,” the doctor said.

“They’re not yours either, doctor,” she said. “Sentimental value, mostly,” she whispered. As she dropped her gaze away from the cold dog tags in her hand, she looked back up at the doctor and said, “It’s not your Spartans’ responsibility to inform her family of her death…its mine. They did their job, now let me do mine to give the dead some peace.”

“Very well,” Dr. Halsey replied, “but to answer your question, I did find something interesting about your deceased teammate…would you like to know?”

Leigh had turned halfway around when something in the doctor’s voice chilled her a bit and she turned her head a bit and asked, “What did you find, doctor?”

“Your teammate’s congealed blood showed trace amounts of compounds I’m familiar with…did you know that she may have been a Spartan?”

She forced out a bark of derisive laugher as she felt the chill seep into her body. There was a good chance that Dr. Halsey _knew_ …and she wouldn’t put it past the brilliant woman to take the necessary steps to figure it out. “That’s absurd, doctor,” she lied, forcing a smile that she certainly did not feel, onto her face. “You must know that all UNSC personnel are injected with various enhancement compounds. There’s no way my teammate could have been a one of your super-soldiers. They can’t die. She’s dead.”

“How true,” the doctor smiled a bit, but Leigh could see that the smile was a bit forced. “However, I am curious as to why your three-man team was paired up with my Spartans on three separate occasions before this operation.”

“They like us?” she shrugged, playing the part of the slightly clueless soldier, hoping that the doctor would stop engaging her in conversation so that she could leave. “Who knows…”

“Yes, who knows indeed,” the doctor dismissively said.

Leigh sensed that opportunity to leave and took it, saying, “Good day, doctor.”

 

* * *

 

“…they have given the future back to others. There is no greater gift one can give another, so forever shall we revere their sacrifice and so shall we commit their bodies to the deep. Amen.”

“Present, arms!”

Leigh snapped her hand up to her eyebrow, all automatic and continued to stare straight ahead. The signal was given and like clockwork, the seven marines holding battle rifles cocked up forty-five degrees in unison and fired a round. As soon as the echo of the round faded, they fired another, and finally a third round. For each round fired in the twenty-one gun salute, Leigh felt her left fist tighten around Eryn’s dog tags she held in her hands until she felt a tiny stab of pain and a bit of blood drip from where her nails dug into her palms. Though there were several unmarked capsule-coffins laid out near the hanger bay’s door, each covered by the UNSC flag; six of those were a part of the drop team and only one body was in one of the six; the others unrecoverable.

She continued to stare stonily ahead, seeing straight through O’Brien who was standing opposite of her. He had flinched during the first shot but held himself together on the next two. But he had turned his head a bit to watch the procession of coffins glide out as that particular section of the bay had its gravity generators turned off and a gentle push of the air currents flowing through the bay sent the coffins on their final journey.

She didn’t care about the various personnel that had gathered for this funeral, nor the fact that the SPARTANs had surprisingly stayed…she just didn’t care anymore. When the command to “order arms” was given, she snapped her hand back to her side and waited until the ceremony commander dismissed them. She saw Dr. Halsey among the personnel who were filing away and saw her staring a bit too inquisitively at her and Jake as they walked from the hangar bay.

“She was examining Eryn’s body in the morgue,” she whispered to her friend and only teammate left. She held up the dog tags in her slightly bloody hand to show Jake and continued to say, “I think there’s a good chance she knows…we need to let aitch-queue know.”

“She had every opportunity to blow our covers, but she hasn’t done anything yet, Leigh…maybe she doesn’t really know,” Jake said, taking the dog tags from her to examine it a bit before handing it back to her.

“It doesn’t matter…if she knows _something_ , then there is a good chance that Colonel Ackerson will find out…she too public of a figure to conceal anything,” she stated.

“All right, I’ll send the message to aitch-queue as soon possible. Where are we headed to next?”

“Commander Ferrico passed the orders along, eyes only…we’re headed to zed-sixty-seven…but I’m going to stop by Reach first,” she said, her fist tightening around the dog tags once again.

 

_In 2539, the remaining members of the Section Zero strike team were sent to the unlisted world known as Onyx after receiving intelligence reports that a SPARTAN-III Beta Company training class team had gone missing. There were rumors from those working in Zone 67 that the team had reported just before contact was lost, that they had encountered a “glowing eye”. In 2552, the Section Zero strike team was never heard from again and was listed as MIA by the UNSC._

 

~*~FINI~*~


End file.
